Chinese Whispers
Not really Web 2.0 or web-anything, but interesting nonetheless. News on Wednesday that Microsoft is threatening to pull out of China because of human rights’ violations.
The BBC quotes Fred Tipson, MS’ senior policy counsel, who says:
“Things are getting bad… and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there,” he told a conference in Athens.
“We have to decide if the persecuting of bloggers reaches a point that it’s unacceptable to do business there.”
“We try to define those levels and the trends are not good there at the moment. It’s a moving target.”
I’m interested in this, of course, because Google and Yahoo! have previously defended their decision to remain in China on the grounds that their presence is more likely to precipitate change and improvements than staying away. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft do indeed act against China, and if this propels action from other companies.
So sad, though, that it’s left to major corporations to take the moral stands our governments should be taking.